


Real As You

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 13:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20546639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "It’s common knowledge among the guardians that Bunnymund is the last Pooka in existence. And sometimes Bunnymund dwells on it more then he would like to. Perhaps he’s dwelling on it a bit TOO much. Because lately he keeps seeing signs of another Pooka.Which is silly and impossible. But as time goes by he actually starts catching glimpses of the thing. It really does for all purposes seems to be a Pooka. And it also appears to be malevolent, having the oddest obsession with Bunnymund.Turns out it’s not even a Pooka. It’s a Tulpa. Basically a being or thing brought into creation because it’s thought of so much or so hard. Tulpa could be created by accident by a friend or Bunnymund himself, or maybe purposely by Pitch."I didn’t really make the Tulpa malevolent. She is created accidentally, though. Bunny can’t quite believe that there was another Pooka out there, though. Too bad for him.





	Real As You

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 8/21/2013.

The walking eggs, the painting flowers, the paint river, the drawing vines—he is accustomed to all these things. He governs them with barely a thought now, reserving most of his time and energy for the careful governance of hopes. Yet even this delicate and immaterial task has grown easy of late.  
  
This does not concern him. It is to be expected. After all, he has had a very long time to practice, and, alone, he has had nothing to distract him from perfecting all his arts.  
  
His thoughts wander as he works now. He thinks of the past, of the long-ago battle that left him alone. He thinks of it so often that the edges of terror wear away, leaving nothing but a smooth river stone of sorrow. The memories, softened by repetition, begin to seem unreal. Could he truly remember those days as they were? How could anything be so terrible? Surely his mind had made half these memories. Surely there must have been others who survived. They have just been…scattered, of course. Waiting.  
  
The Guardian begins to hope.  
  


* * *

  
  
He finds the first signs not long afterwards, and his hopes grow stronger.   
  
Who but a Pooka would leave a trail of early-blooming flowers through the forest? Who but a Pooka could make a dead tree bloom, and bloom out of season? Who but a Pooka could leave footprints so like (so very like, finally finally) his own, but slightly smaller? (He thanks the rain for leaving the ground soft enough to see these glorious relics.) Who but a Pooka could leave fur of that shade behind on the bark of a tree so perfect for scratching? (He knows the others see him as gray, but with his Pooka eyes he sees himself more like the eggs he paints, not any Earth creature. The fur he finds is like his. But not his, oh wonderful.)  
  
He sniffs the fur left behind, and his heart pounds. This other Pooka, this other Pooka that must be, is a female. He hopes he will meet her soon.  
  


* * *

  
  
He meets her the next day. As customary, he waits for her to speak first. She is beautiful, so beautiful, with such a familiar shape, such a familiar way of moving. She looks just how he hoped she would look. After several minutes pass he realizes she is not going to speak first. Something is wrong.  
  
“Hello,” he says, the old language returning to him almost naturally. “I haven’t seen you around before.”  
  
“Does it matter?” she asks. Her voice sounds just how he hoped it would.  
  
“Of course it matters,” he says. “I’ve been alone all this time. Where were you?”  
  
“I’m here now.” She smiles.  
  
“What’s your name?”  
  
She only continues to smile while stepping closer to him. Soon, she is close enough to touch, but she still says nothing.  
  
“You’re”—oh he would swear on his immortal life that she’s real, she smells so real—“not real, are you?”  
  
Her expression is one of deepest sympathy as she reaches out for his hand with her own, and it doesn’t change as her hand passes through his. “I wish you hadn’t said that, Bunny,” she says. “I was almost as real as you. But you just couldn’t believe in me, could you? And you were the only one…”  
  
She vanishes between one blink and the next.  
  
Bunny falls to his knees on the soft earth. He knows all too well that she might still be there. He knows all too well that he’ll never see her again. Now, more than ever, he finds he can’t believe that there were other survivors. He can’t believe that he won’t always be alone.  
  
And so he always will be.


End file.
